Today sucked ass.

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Nate had an appointment at a popular hospital (JH) this morning with the pediatric infusion clinic to test for growth hormone function. The test involves getting an IV put in and being infused with brain stimulating checmicals and then drawing blood from the IV every 30 min for 2.5. hours. They put numbing cream on both wrists ("in case the first one doesn't work") <<<<<That should have been my first clue. The numbing cream didn't do shit and I think he was actually in more pain from the tourniquet than the stick. They tried both wrists and then called in the "vein nurse". Why the F she wasn't used first is beyond me. She tried to get it in the second wrist again and by this time Nate is screaming and super pissed off. He then head butted me in the eye and we said "that's it" and left.

Then I proceeded to lose my parking ticket to get out of the garage. I told the lady at the window I lost it and she says "oh look real hard for it" 
"I have looked for it and I cannot find it the last time I saw it was when we were checking in at the clinic"
I told her just charge me whatever because I have to get out of here..I was barely holding it together.
"you will have to pay for the whole day and that is 14 dollars"
"Fine' I don't care"
"O.K. just give me your license and registration"
"You have got to be kidding me!"
"Oh, man I can't handle anymore of this today" and a second lady comes up to the window
"How can I help you ma'am"
"Just charge me for the lost ticket, I NEED to get out of here"
"What time did you get in today?" (It's 10 am)
"It was around 7:45 no 8am"
She starts to ring me up while the other chick is WRITING DOWN MY LICENSE NUMBER !!!! FFS!! Get me the fuck outta here! I lost it and let the tears fall.
It's a gd parking garage at one of the most prominent hospitals in the US and they are treating me like a criminal.
The new lady then proceeds to charge me for the full day. Why the f she cared what time I came in at I will never know.
FUCK YOU JH. FUCK YOU.

*phew* I am feeling much better. Thanks for reading my rant. Don't feel you need to reply. I "Love it" pat on the back will be enough. I know you guys will "get" what suckage this morning was...

ToastieSimons

Been there done that (no idea why it's underlined).  

I wish I could Love tit it like 100 times for you.

thefuturemrskudla

Seems JH needs to conduct some customer service training.
Owen is being evaluated for growth hormone, too. His last 2 blood tests have been on the low end of normal, and we had a bone age hand xray done last week. We see his Endo next week. We haven't had the test you described.
Does Nate take thyroid meds? Owen has taken synthroid since he was about 16 months.

macchiatto

I'm so sorry.

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thefuturemrskudla said:

Seems JH needs to conduct some customer service training.
Owen is being evaluated for growth hormone, too. His last 2 blood tests have been on the low end of normal, and we had a bone age hand xray done last week. We see his Endo next week. We haven't had the test you described.
Does Nate take thyroid meds? Owen has taken synthroid since he was about 16 months.

We are just starting the Endo route. We first saw them 6 months ago and since that appointment he only grew 2 centimeters. The doctor did the basic blood work looking for celiac and T4 levels. They were normal. He was also able to look at an X-ray we had done for Nate's thumbs about a year ago and that seemed ok too. *shrugs*

At this point we are probably going to hold off on further Endo testing for another year.

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-auntie- said:

 PatientRelations@jhmi.edu 

I'd C&P your rant and send it along.

I was thinking about doing this. DH was in line a couple of cars before me and the same lady yelled at him for "shoving the signed credit slip in her face" after she was bitchy to him while handing over the pen and slip. He then got ticked and said "what the hell are you talking about?" And she said " I asked you three times to sign the slip" as if that was somehow her excuse for her bad attitude.

So now I understand why she was doubly bitchy to me. We were both pretty shaken up after the fiasco inside, but there is no way we deserved how we were treated.

Princess_Lily

Sounds like a bitchy parking lady. Just because you lost a ticket, doesn't mean she has to add her two cents about "not able to handle this today...". Lady, if you cant handle it, get a job outside of customer service, especially customer service settings in emotionally intense environments like a hospital or pediatric doctors offices.

((((Hugs))))) AR

ToastieSimons

Are you planning on rescheduling?

If you do the blood test again you should immediately tell them your child is a very hard stick and you already attempted this test once and had to cancel it because they couldn't get an IV in.

This happened to us with an MRI, they couldn't get DS1's vein after multiple attempts.  I called it and we rescheduled for 2 weeks later.  The nurses didn't even attempt.  We all went up to preop and the anesthesia team came in and did it.  One poke, took about 15 seconds, he taped it and the nurses came and dressed it so it wouldn't come out.